“Acts of monstrous criminality stand on their own. They begin and end with the criminals who commit them, not collectively with all the citizens of a state, not with those who listen to talk radio, not with maps of swing districts used by both sides of the aisle, not with law-abiding citizens who respectfully exercise their First Amendment rights at campaign rallies, not with those who proudly voted in the last election.” – Sarah Palin on Facebook“The despicable act in Tucson is a horrifying and senseless tragedy, and should be condemned as a single act of violence, by a single unstable individual.” — Sharron Angle“I hold those responsible for the violence, responsible for the violence. I denounce those who attempt to blame political opponents for the acts of madmen.” – Glenn Beck’s “Anti-Violence Pledge”“There isn’t any correlation. It’s like blaming Jodie Foster for the individual who shot Ronald Reagan… People need to go and point fingers. It’s unfortunate, but some people do. They have to find somebody to demonize.” – Tucson right-wing radio shock jock Jon Justice“You can’t call this an isolated incident. This is just the latest in a pattern.” – Rush Limbaugh, but no, he’s not speaking about the shooting itself, which was an isolated incident; he’s speaking about the liberal mainstream media’s cover-up of the facts showing it’s really Limbaugh critic Sheriff Dupnik who caused the shooting

It’s reassuring to think that since Loughner was deranged,

There’s no need for our national policies or tone to be changed.

It’s comforting to think that because there’s no direct causation,

We can continue our march towards decivilization.

It’s convenient to believe that this tragedy was an exception,

But that would be an unfortunate self-deception.

No matter what these self-servers say,

The truth is that everything’s not OK.

We can either change things, or this will happen again.

I wonder: What will all of you say then?

***

Here’s Hardball’s 1/18/11 panel discussion about how everything’s really not OK, whether or not in this case there’s a direct link between Loughner and incendiary rhetoric.

Conservatives were very happy about the CBS poll that came out 1/11/11 because it showed that only one in three Americans think that harsh political rhetoric had anything to do with the shooting. But more interestingly to me, while 45% of Dems and Independents viewed the shooting as a random act not likely to be repeated, 55% of Republicans thought that. Fox News much?CBSNewsPoll_011111